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How to Draw Your OC
So hey there. It’s Taylor here and I’ve requested permission from Her Royal Highness, the Queen Alicorn to make a how to draw ponies and such. Also, I will draw the sketch lines for each component (actual body, mane, tail, clothing and accessories, facial features) in different colours so that it is easier to see them. I’m doing this on MS Paint, but that’s so that I don’t have to take a terrible picture of every step with my iPad. And so that it’s clearer and more defined and stuff. You have the option of doing it digitally or by hand, or both, but I’ll talk about that later. This mess is written by: The Queen The Artist The Jack-of-All-Trades ---- =Actual Tutorial= Eyes The eyes have to be large and expressive because it's a cartoon. Own those eyes, give them life, make them special. Fillies The eyes for foals are round. Always. To draw them, start by drawing a circle. For now, I’ll draw the eyes separately, for the sake of being able to have them large for demonstration purposes. Kay. So here’s our circle: Simple enough. Now we’ll want to draw the eyelash-line-thing at the top. This will be reasonably thick. This line will start at the bottom end of the circle and will extend clockwise towards the top. The line will end a little bit beyond the top. Like so: Next, it’s time to draw the pupil and iris. The pupil is basically a circle within another circle, which is the iris. The pupil, as the foals are children and are meant to appear young and cute, is large compared to the rather thin iris. The pupil and iris can be placed in various places, but for now, they will be placed so that the eyes are facing forward: Finally, we just need to colour in the pupil and draw in the sparkles, which are basically two ovals, one big and one small, and eyelashes. Foals have two or three eyelashes and they are quite small and curled. This is only if they're female, though. Here we go: Then to draw the second eye, you draw the same thing, but flipped. ¾ eyes will be discussed later. Of course, we have to colour this, but that’s also a topic for later. Adults (females) Adult eyes have more variety. For example, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie both have slightly sideways ovals for eyes, while Rarity has more feminine eyes in a quite different shape that I have no idea how to describe. So first, we’ll draw the oval-ish eyes Begin by drawing the slanted oval. Then we’ll outline them for the eyelash line. Starting at the bottom and making our way clockwise towards the top. Again, we’ll stop a little way after the top of the circle. Lovely. Now it’s time for the pupil and iris. They are more oval –shaped in comparison to the foals’. But they are the same basic concept of being a shape within a larger shape. The irises are a bit thicker on adult ponies, I must add. So LET’S DRAW!! And once more, we are brought to the step of colouring in the iris and drawing in the sparkles and eyelashes. There can be up to five eyelashes, but the normal number is three. These eyelashes can be curled, like Pinkie Pie, or straight like Rainbow Dash. There is also the option to add the lower eyelashes, which will go to the bottom corner that isn’t part of the outline. There are normally three of these too. Later, we’ll be drawing Rarity and princess-style eyes and talking about eyeliner and eyeshadow, but I’m too lazy to write much more right now. Plus I have formatting issues to fix. Some discussion on Bodies Female (Non-Alicorn) Okay. So all the females seem to have about the same sort of base, except for Fleur De Lis, the Princesses (not including Twi) and Sassy Saddles, who have a more regal alicorn figure. The lines are thick and defined and in a darker colour than what they are outlining. So first off, we’ll start off by drawing their eyes. Sometimes, drawing bodies are hard, especially for beginners drawing just with a computer software. A tip to draw the body better is start sketching on paper lightly, then upload it to your computer, open it up on the software, then start a new layer to trace it. Sometimes, if you don't have a good camera or scanner, you can sketch it right on the software. It's pretty simple — all you really need to do is start by drawing a circle, some guidelines, the ears, snout, and nose. If it's a unicorn, you can erase a bit of the head to draw a horn, of course. On the show, the females have a slimmer body than males, though the bones don't show. The snout is also round, and most of the time the ears are pointy. For the legs, the thing that a lot of people do (like the official Hasbro), is the hind legs are often different from the front. Near the body, they would draw a line inwards, then back up to resemble real horses. It's important you have four legs, so when you draw them, make sure you include the other leg. Of course, it would be blocked by the other leg, but just draw a small portion of how you would imagine it. Female Horns The horns are usually not as pointy as the male. The rich or noble ponies have a similar horn to the alicorns, which is usually longer than the regular unicorns. Fleur De Lis, for example. Compare her horn to Rarity's. You would clearly see that the horn is way longer and that Rarity's is super short and round. You see lines on their horns. This will depend on the length of the horn. Regular, non-noble or high in power unicorns will have only three lines on the horn representing a spiral. Unicorns like Fleur De Lis's has seven lines because of its length. Alicorns like Cadence only has six lines, though. Celestia's horn is much longer than any other alicorn's, however she only has seven lines on her horn, which have more separation than Fleur de Lis's horn. Female Wings A pegasus wing is short and only has two "layers". For alicorns, however, their wings are bigger, like Twilight's or Luna's. Celestia's, however, has more "feathers". When the wings are closed, they look the same, only the alicorns' are bigger. When they are closed, they would have the same amount of "features" in the front and the rest of it is behind a few curves are lines. Male Horns, Wings, Bodies There's not much to cover, which is why they're in the same section. Many stallions have their hoves with a coat underneath similar to their mane colour. Over that, they have another coat with a different colour. The horns have three lines, and their manes are sometimes somewhat messy and not at all neat and "gelled" in appearance like those of females. Their wings are a bit bigger than the females' wings and their muzzles gradually extend from the face, unlike the sharp bend that leads to a female's muzzle. The muzzle is often angled and large, but sometimes, such as on Big Mac, it is rounded but still very masculine. They also have bodies of the same shape, but larger and thicker. How to Draw the Bodies Adult Adult bodies obviously have a lot of variety and can often turn out quite a bit different to what you start off with. This is especially seen through this tutorial in which I am forever adjusting the bits and pieces. The pose we’re doing is the widely used and extremely boring, but easy to start off with: the ¾ view. While many how-to’s will instruct you to draw some circles and lines, I find these very inaccurate and hard to work with. So instead, I’ll ask you pretty please to draw a cute little circle the size you want the head to be: Next, draw in the shape of the head and the ears around the circle. The ears are like rounded triangles and the head is sort of a circle. This will be extremely important, my friend, so do it to the best of your ability. The head will determine where the body is. Where the neck leads, how big it should be. The positioning of the eyes and every other important thing on the face. Do it ‘‘carefully’’ Now it is time to draw in the neck. The neck is a curved, but not too curved line. It goes down straight, but curved outwards slightly before curling back in towards the body for the stomach. You’ll then want to bring the neck-line-thing back in and upwards like so: Easy enough. From there, you’ll want to draw in the back legs. They extend downwards, before moving back and out slightly. Then they sharply bend inwards and round off at the hip. This may sound confusing, but makes sense with the illustration: When you draw this, you’ll often find the stomach line looks a bit odd, so trim it down to your liking, my dear. When that’s all said and done, draw in the back leg. See: Magic. Now we’ll erase a bit off the front, nearer to the front of the neck. For what, you ask? In this space you have removed, we shall draw in the front leg. The leg extends downwards, getting slightly wider at the hoof, and tapers as it comes back up. Voila: Dear lordie my friend, you’re getting good at this!! Now we’ll just draw in the back leg, join the back of the neck to the ear and draw in the muzzle! Also, erase that little circle in the face. You no longer need it. Yey. For males, the muzzle is different and I have drawn a female one. I will later teach you the art of the male muzzle, but for now, let’s do our steps!! And that's the body done!! Alicorn Foal Wings and Horns I have a few simple steps through which you can draw wings and horns!! Don't even need to describe it, because it's so simple. Let the pictures talk :3 Horns And you're done!!! Wings And there we are. lovely. Faces Faces are quite simple, but expressive. They say a lot about your character. The expression is everything. Begin by drawing a line where you want the eyes to sit. A little bit above the muzzle, I would say: Then draw your eyes, which have been discussed earlier in the page :3 Now you can get rid of that pesky little eye line. The final step is to draw a mouth. Keep it simple, align it to your OC's feelings. You can draw eyebrows too, but they're only really used for expression so a happy or blank pony generally won't have any. Hair Hair is easy. Pffft~ It's often easiest to divide it up into parts- the hairline or bangs, the top of the head, and the actual mane which is either done up, spiked up, or hangs around the neck. Let's begin. After looking through some helpful references and choosing a style, I began drawing Lily's OC's hair. Begin by drawing the hairline or bangs. Make sure you make it appear as though the horn (if present) and ears are sticking out. Now draw the hair framing the face, if there's some there. This is usually connected to the bangs or hairline. Now you'll want to do the top of the head. If the hair is done up at the top of the head (in a bun or ponytail or smth), draw that too! Time to clean up those lines!! (I am assuming that you have been through kindergarten and know how to colour inside the lines) Coloring time!! Awesome. Now all we need to do is draw in the tail. The tail is basically just a big lock of hair and it isn't very important. It should be the easiest thing to draw other than the ears. It has the same texture and often colours as the mane, so it's not all that complicated. And here we have your horsey!! Whoops. I mean pony yes Tay great MLP admining The cutie mark is then added in. I'm assuming you know how to do that because I honestly can't teach you. A cutie mark isn't something I can teach you to draw, honey. If you want to make the lines bolder, copy and paste the drawing to a new layer on top of the drawing. Move it just a bit to the left or right. Those details Colouring Eyes Eyes. Eyes are a bit different. So you remember this?: We'll be colouring it in. So I've converted the red to black so it's the right colours (duh). Begin with the flat colour. I've chosen this grayish sea green. There is often a gradient seen on MLP eyes, with a darker shade at the top transcending into a lighter one (or in Apple Bloom's case, red to yellow). We'll be focusing on the more normal dark-to light gradient for now. However, gradients can be hard with those highlights in the way. But we'll be cheating and using these highlights to our advantages. Draw a wavy line halfway through the iris and fill that bottom separated section in with a slightly lighter shade. It should look like this: Easy, right? Now we'll want to draw two more, small sections. the highlights. These highlights are right next to each other. The darker one is on the bottom and the lighter shade is on top. If this is hard to understand, look at the illustrations. Yay. Now all that's left is to fill in these sections and you have successfully coloured in your eye!! Bodies MLP colouring is so incredibly easy. It's all flat colours, except for the eyes. This is very convenient if you just want a picture that looks like the official MLP style. If you want something a bit more dramatic and professional-looking, you're in the wrong place. This is for people who are starting out and just want to improve and learn. So yeah. Flat colours. Literally your pony is thickly outlined by a shade darker than the coat. Then the coat colour is added. Magic and the simplicity looks great. The same thing goes for the hair, but it's slightly different. As manes and tales are often more than one colour, the hair begins with outlining in a shade darker than the base colour. Highlights, streaks, and even just strands for texture are separated by lines of the darker base colour, and then filled in. It's as easy as pie!! Accessorising Okay peeps. This part is mostly going to be written by Grimms. So acessorises, ay? Okay, so when thinking of accessories, something huge is ask your self: would somebody (even a back grounder) wear this in the show? Your not going to see Lyra in Heelies or Twilight with Mickey Mouse Ears, so your oc probably won't were it. Trivia and TipsnTricks What order should all this stuff be read in? Okay. So first you'll want to read about the eyes. Then you'll want to move on to bodies. The reading bit, not the actual tutorial. then move onto the body and face tutorial. Go to the horns and wings section if required. Second to last, go to the hair section if you need help on that. After that read about the colouring and the cutie marks. Making life easier *Have your perbang colour references on the screen *The pony generator is great for referencing. I'm not saying trace or steal, but if you want to make a certain pose and need a reference, there's an adjustable skeleton on it that you can use to your advantage. You're still drawing your own art, you're just making life easier for yourself. *Bases are very good references too!! Don't outright steal them, or trace them, or use them- that's not your art!! But if you refer to them while drawing, you will find that the process is simplified tenfold and it's legal too!! *Have your mane and tail references also on a screen or drawn. These will be very important *Look at other people's OCs and take inspiration! Don't steal their ideas, but learn from them, look at the way they've drawn the design, the colours, the appearance *Look for colour schemes online! These will help a lot in the colouring process, and help inspire character (Twilight's dusky colours, Fluttershy's mellow ones) *Stop if it's annoying you. If it seems hard and tedious, take a breather. You're only gonna get worse if you keep on repeating the same mistakes. *Ask one of your helpful admins, my dear Category:Tutorials